A 12-month staff-led commitment by the Moon Dog Brewing team to do their bit to combat climate change has resulted in the brewery being certified carbon neutral.
“Our journey to becoming a carbon neutral brewery started in 2020, when as a team we realised that we could create delicious beers and seltzers, while reducing our impact on the environment at the same time,” co-founder Karl van Buuren said.
An internal project team worked with the agency Point Advisory, which audited the brewery’s carbon footprint and developed strategies and targets to help the company move to carbon neutrality.
“Achieving carbon neutrality is the first step in our journey to reduce our impact on the environment and ensuring our processes are sustainable into the future. Further work is being undertaken with our packaging and raw material suppliers to ensure that all aspects of our supply chain are focused on environmental sustainability”, van Buuren said.
Key achievements:
- initiatives to reduce key emissions areas during manufacturing;
- offsetting projected emissions by investing in renewable energy projects in the Philippines;
- working with suppliers to reduce the carbon footprint of raw ingredients and packaging materials;
- moved to a completely carbon neutral electricity supply for all brewery and venue sites;
- reduced CO2 emissions by 83 tonnes through solar power, the solar power system at Moon Dog World in Preston generated 87,000 kWh of energy in the last 12 months.
Moon Dog has set itself the goals of achieving official certification from Climate Active by July, which will then require yearly audits to maintain carbon neutral status.
“We have established an ongoing carbon reduction action plan to ensure every decision we make maintains our focus on reducing our carbon footprint, and that we are investing in infrastructure to continually improve our processes and our impact on the environment,” van Buuren said.
It is also working on the final implementations at the brewery and its two venues to reduce emissions, as well as reassessing all its packaging material, third party suppliers, transport services, and raw materials.
But to mark its achievements so far, Mood Dog have created The Future is Bright Solar Powered IPA. Moon Dog used their 317 solar panels/100kW solar inverter to help brew this bright and juicy IPA.
The Future is Bright is made at Moon Dog’s brewery in Preston, Melbourne, which uses power generated from their solar power system to run and provide cooling for the wort and fermentation process.
All electricity used for the brew is either sourced from solar panels, or from a carbon neutral supplier. 100 per cent of the natural gas used as heating during the brewing process is offset to produce a fully carbon neutral drop.
The Future is Bright is crisp and fruity with hints of grapefruit, mango, orange and stone fruit coming from the hops.
The Future is Bright is available from Moon Dog’s online store and independent bottle-o’s across Australia. RRP $20.
